Generic valve drives for an internal combustion engine with a camshaft and with at least one cam follower and with a cam group non-rotatably fixed on the camshaft with a first cam and with a second cam axially adjacent to the first cam are already known. There, the cam follower is drive-connected in a first position with the first cam of the respective cam group and in a second position with the second cam of the respective cam group.
By way of an adjusting device, the cam follower can be switched between the first position and the second position and thus activate or deactivate a corresponding cylinder of the internal combustion engine. In order to control the adjusting device, the valve drive known from the prior art comprises a control shaft which is rotatably and axially moveably mounted and controls the adjusting device by way of a control element group fixed on the control shaft.
Disadvantageous with the control shaft known from the prior art however is that activating the adjusting device is only possible by a complex movement sequence—for example a rotation combined with an axial shift. This not only results in longer activation times but also increases the production and repair costs. Furthermore, a separate activation of the individual cylinders cannot be realised or only with major effort.